


Inspiration Day: Opposites

by lanalucy



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Community: bsg_epics, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 01:25:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanalucy/pseuds/lanalucy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Write ficlets where a character makes a decision opposite the one they made in canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Starbuck Made an Impression

**Author's Note:**

> These all seemed to end up mostly expositiony, tell rather than show, which is aggravating. I'm posting them anyway.
> 
> Also, they all seem to be angsty - the changes in decision appear to result in many more character deaths.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zak didn't go to flight school.

Zak didn’t take his dad’s words about a man being a man at face value like his older brother did, but when he told Bill that he was going to art school on a full scholarship instead of to flight school, he was still amazed at how thrilled Bill was about his choice.  
  
Being a military brat and a Viper-lover - just because he didn’t want to fly them didn’t mean he didn’t have a mad crush on the sexiest plane the Colonies had ever produced - he loved frequenting the bars where the Viper jocks hung out. He met Starbuck at the biggest one, the Pen, one Friday night. They were both a little drunk, and she kept calling him Nugget, which was different, and she had the most amazing mural on her apartment wall, which she told him she’d painted herself. She was easily the hottest frak of his entire life, one he remembered with great fondness. On a regular basis.  
  
When the nukes started hitting Caprica, he was wondering why he’d never seen her at the Pen since, and wondering how much razzing he’d get from his dad when he got this email asking him to make a discreet inquiry or two as to the identity of Viper pilot Starbuck. Bill never got the message.


	2. Recipe For Sorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zak didn't drink that night.

Zak almost instantly regretted introducing his brother to his girlfriend. They were so immediately in sync with each other that he could hardly get a word in edgewise. They weren’t purposely ignoring him, but neither noticed that he was still working on his first glass of wine, while they had finished off nearly two bottles between them. Kara was still her usual bouncy self all evening, lighting on his lap occasionally to plant a solid kiss on him, but he noticed that even when she was kissing him, her attention was on Lee, almost like a moth drawn helplessly to a light source.  
  
He was thrilled, at first, when they got along so well, but watching them clean the dishes, for instance, he was surprised to realized that they weren’t speaking to each other, at least not with words. They were completely comfortable in each other’s space, and he had the worst feeling that if he were not there, they’d be frakking with their bodies instead of just their eyes, and neither would spare him a thought while they did it.  
  
He was proved right when Kara, drunk as she already was, decided that shots were a good idea. He listened as their conversation got ever more intimate. Watched with the morbid curiosity of a rubbernecker as Kara, having completely forgotten Zak’s presence, propositioned Lee, daring him to frak her right there and then. He was stunned to see Lee respond, and couldn’t help the bitterness in his voice when he asked, “Can I get you guys anything? Blanket? Condoms? A room?”  
  
Their immediate guilty recoil from each other did nothing to stem his anger, and Lee’s overly formal handshake and retreat left a hole in Zak’s middle. He knew that had he said nothing, his brother and his girl would have been frakking on the table in mere seconds.   
  
Kara made no attempt to apologize, just withdrew and became increasingly cruel and cutting, drinking heavily and frakking without discretion. By the time he was ready for his flight quals, he and Kara had drifted completely apart and were simply instructor and student again. When he failed to qualify for Vipers, he resented Kara’s decision. Oh, he knew he hadn’t passed, but he was still too angry at her to apply logic to her decision.  
  
In the end, though, his greatest sorrow was that his relationship with his brother was never the same.  
  
Kara was killed in a training exercise, and Lee never married. None of them survived the end of the world.


	3. Dinner With the Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zak told his dad about his relationship with Kara.

_Kara said yes!_ Zak’s email to his father was a surprise. He’d known that Zak had been dating someone, but he had no idea it’d gotten serious. Galactica would be visiting Picon soon for a brief planetside R &R, so he made arrangements for the whole family, including Caroline and her new beau, to visit Galactica while she was in orbit. He did have an ulterior motive - he had never met anyone better at ferreting out information during conversation than his first ex-wife.  
  
It was through her efforts that he learned Zak had met Kara at the Academy, but they weren’t fellow students. Kara was not only a flight instructor, but was Zak’s flight instructor! It was rare for all of them to be in one place, so Caroline was taking plenty of pictures. He managed to get a couple of them printed out, and had them sent anonymously to Kara’s superior.  
  
Zak was immediately assigned to a different instructor, and his academic record under Kara scrutinized heavily. Since she had shown him no favoritism that they could ascertain, they were merely instructed to end their relationship. Kara got an official reprimand in her file and six month’s reduction in rank. When she was offered a position as secondary flight instructor on the Pegasus, she jumped at the chance to get away.  
  
She stripped herself of all compassion, becoming harder, meaner, even vicious. She fit perfectly into Cain’s no-nonsense regime, and the Kara who met the Adamas again was unrecognizable to them.   
  
Seeing her again, Bill almost regretted his decision - he’d actually liked Kara Thrace, and this woman had none of her humor or soft edges.   
  
Kara was shot on a basestar during a rescue op, and was almost glad when Major Shaw ordered her to stay behind to detonate the nuke. She was forgotten almost immediately.


	4. Moving Target

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karl lets Kara shoot.

Karl couldn’t believe what he was seeing - there was another Sharon, walking calmly around the corner of the building, even as “his” Sharon was moving in his peripheral vision. When she invited him to just shoot her and get it over with, he was never sure if he missed at least partly because of his misguided feelings for her.  
  
He was stunned when she told him she was pregnant. “You’re what? No way. You’re a machine. Machines don’t get pregnant.” He never even wondered if she was telling the truth.  
  
When they ran into Kara Thrace at the museum in Delphi and she aimed her sidearm at Sharon, Karl stepped aside with a bitter, “Do it. I hate the very sight of her.” Unlike Karl, Kara didn’t have mixed feelings for the skinjob, and she had no trouble hitting a moving target, even as injured as she was.  
  
Karl had a lot of time to think, packed into that Raider with Kara, and by the time they returned to Kobol and the President with the Arrow of Apollo, he was more than ready to do his part to kill as many Toasters as possible.


End file.
